ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2938 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2938 ************************************ 7 Nov 2004 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for a German man living between 1350 and 1550. In our period, there wasn't a uniform German language, but rather a collection of dialects that varied from one region to the next. These dialects fall into two major groups: Low German in the north and High German in the south, including Bavaria and Austria. is in origin a conflation of the names and ; and the Low German variant first appear in Low German territory (in the north). [4] We found in Silesia between 1317-39 and in the 14th c. (no more precise date), as well as the Latin form in 1306 and in Mecklenberg in 1496. [1,5] We have not found this name after the end of the 15th century. This could be a result of the spottiness of our sources, or it could indicate that the name fell out of use. Locative bynames in German were formed mainly in three ways: the name of the town without modification, ; a phrase with , e.g. ; and the adjective form of the place name, . The form using would be a bit unusual in the 16th c. except among the nobility [2]. The adjectival form was more common in southern Germany, especially later in period. The unmodified place name was the most common form in the northern and central parts of Germany. [3,6] We found examples of bynames of the first type (unmodified placename) based on period spellings of , including 1407 and 1456. [3] Here, the {sz} represent the s-z ligature found in German, which looks like a lower-case Greek beta. The substitution of for <{sz}> is primarily a modern phenomenon, but in records from Bohemia and the western half of the Czech Republic, we found in 1326 (from ) and in 1368 (from ). [7] This supports as a reasonable Bohemian spelling of the city name in the first 50 or so years of your period. , , and are all fine choices for the first 150 years of your period; is reasonable for roughly the first 50 in a Bohemian context. would have been pronounced roughly \LOO-tehr fohn VAY-sen-bairkkh\, where \kh\ is the sound of in German . In most dialects the pronunciation of the first syllable of the place-name gradually shifted to \VEY-\ (rhymes with ). was pronounced the same as . We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Walraven van Nijmegen, Talan Gwynek, and Arval Benicoeur. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 07 November 2004 -- References: [1] Talan Gwynek, "Medieval German Given Names from Silesia", revised edition (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1999). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/bahlow/ [2] We discussed the use of the preposition in some detail in a report for a previous client. To find out more, see Academy of Saint Gabriel report 2041. http://www.s-gabriel.org/2041 [3] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960). s.nn. Salzburg(er), Wei{sz}enberg(er), Wolfauer, Wolfinger, Wolfrath, Wolfsberg, Wolfurt(er) [4] Ibid., s.n. Luther [5] Engel, Franz, _Die Mecklenburgischen Kaiserbederegister von 1496 _, Mitteldeutsche Forschungen 56 (Koeln: Boehlau Verlag, 1968). pp. 28, 59, 64, 69 [6] Schwarz, Ernst, _Deutsche Namenforschung. I: Ruf- und Familiennamen_ (Goettingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1949). p. 105 [7] Schwarz, Ernst. _Sudetendeutsche Familiennamen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts_ (Mu"nchen: Robert Lerche, 1973). s.nn. Wei{sz}enbeck, Wei{sz}enstein